A mystery portrait of a girl which sold for €900 at auction yesterday is reputed to be a "lost" painting of a member of the Kennedy family, America's most famous political dynasty.
A Portrait of a Young Girl in a White Dress with Pink Trim Seated on a Chair had been estimated to sell for between €1,000 and €1,500 at fine art auctioneers' Mealy's summer sale in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny.
The buyer - a doctor who lives in the southeast - said afterwards that the price was "not big money" and he "thought it would go for an awful lot more".
If the subject and provenance of the painting can be authenticated, he may have got a bargain.
The large oil on cannvas, which is dated 1938 and measuring 5ft by 3 ft, is by Frank W Wood an English painter who was born in 1862 and died in 1953. Originally an officer in the Royal Navy, his career as an artist blossomed when the British royal family began to buy his paintings. It is unclear how this portrait ended up in Ireland.
Auctioneer George Gerard Mealy said the vendor, an Irish hotelier bought the painting over 20 years ago at a house-clearance sale. He "had it hanging in his hotel near Dublin" where it was spotted by an elderly art dealer who instantly recognised it as a Wood and claimed that it was "definitely of one of the Kennedys".
The art dealer offered to buy it but the hotelier refused and the picture was in his private collection ever since.
If the portrait is ,indeed, "one of the Kennedys" then the likely contender is Jean Kennedy Smith who was ten years old in 1938 when her father Joe became US ambassador to Britain. She herself went on to become US Ambassador to Ireland for President Clinton. It is possible that the portrait was painted by the artist while the family was living in London and the subject of intense media scrutiny.
Mr Mealy believes the girl has "the Kennedy jaw-line." The successful bidder said yesterday he would start to research the painting and would begin by contacting the Kennedy family in the United States.
The late President John F Kennedy had five sisters: Rosemary Kennedy (died 2005); Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish (died 1948); Patricia Kennedy Lawford (died 2006); Eunice Kennedy Shriver (died 2009); and Jean Kennedy Smith (born 1928).
Later in the auction, the "spare head" of Grafton Street's Molly Malone sculpture failed to sell. Two identical bronze heads were prepared from the original mould 23 years ago by Bantry, Co Cork-based sculptress Jeanne Rynhart.
However, The Head of Molly Malone failed to reach its lowest estimate of €20,000 and the auctioneer withdrew the lot when bidding stalled at €18,000. A set of prehistoric giant Irish deer antlers, found in a Midlands coal-shed, sold for €10,000, double the estimate.
